a prayer for the new year

Early in the morning I’m getting on a plane for Austin, Texas to go and both say goodbye to and celebrate the life of my friend David Gentiles. I fly back to Durham early Thursday. As I was trying to find words for my final post of the year (since I don’t imagine getting to a computer tomorrow), I received a wonderful email note from my friend, Joy Jordan-Lake (go buy her very excellent novel now) with a prayer from a book I first came to know back in my youth ministry days, Ted Loder’s Guerrillas Of Grace: Prayers For The Battle (buy that one, too). The prayer speaks to and for me tonight and is worth passing along:

Guide Me into an Unclenched Moment

Gentle me,
Holy One,
into an unclenched moment,
a deep breath,
a letting go
of heavy expectancies,
of shriveling anxieties,
of dead certainties,
that, softened by the silence,
surrounded by the light,
and open to the mystery,
I may be found by wholeness,
upheld by the unfathomable,
entranced by the simple,
and filled with the joy
that is you.

Here’s to the year ahead: may it be filled with one unclenched moment after another, whether those moments are filled with grief or joy or pain or hope or even despair; may we open our hearts to God and to one another, asking for help with the same intentionality with which we offer it, convinced that our choice to not forsake our gathering together is what will change our world, beginning with us.

For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes.

Peace,
Milton